Learn While You Teach
The gift of learning from teaching 10 year olds
A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine asked me whether I was available to sub-teach her on her Saturday morning Greek class. Have I even done that before? No! Did I know what to tell or teach those children, or even the level of their greek? Absolutely not. Did I accept to do it in a heart-beat? Most certainly yes!
What i did know however at that point was that I wanted to give something back to the Greek community here. I felt that it was something I had to do during my time here, and to be honest, because it also sounded fun.
However, I couldn’t possibly imagine what I was getting myself into. I had no clue that it would turn out to be such an important experience.
After spending the first 3 minutes in an awkward silence (I told you, I had no clue), I slowly started reading through the text book and asking questions. I thought it would be easy and we would then move on to the next page and do grammar. Little did I think, as the class was looking from me to explain them what we just read.
And this is where it struck me. I was actually passing down my knowledge and I was responsible for even a tiny part of those kids education. Additionally, I had to adjust the level of my effort according to their needs and based on their feedback. I needed to come up with a plan on how to best present what i wanted to say, and I needed it fast…
…It just got exciting and challenging!
And all of a sudden, I could see myself in their position and my teachers’ in mine. I could see where I was coming from. I really underestimated my professors back then. Those guys were incredible marketers.
You think training sales people to tell your story and learn your products is hard? Well maybe then try to pass on your knowledge to a bunch of 10-year olds.
A teacher, like a marketer, is trying to present and pass on what he/she already knows on a subject in the most interesting and at the same time informative manner possible. Those guys are masters of the 4Ps. A teacher invests time (price) on his methods to better pass on (promotion) his knowledge (product) to his audience at a given time under given circumstances (place).
Undergoing a 2 hour session as a teacher helped me think more broadly on strategies about engaging a tough audience. I was tasked to keep my class at “speed” as well as “entertain” them with what, at the age of 10, might seam boring.
However, at the same time, a teacher too receives an incredible amount of knowledge from his class. The feedback you receive from an audience that young transforms your perception towards your belief on the effectiveness of your tactics.
It makes you question your strength or influence and reevaluate your communication methods to better transfer your knowledge.
It makes you rework on your tactics and think outside of the box to employ strategies that enable your audience to start seeing things in a different way.
And that’s exactly what I learned. I understood how my audience sees what I have to say when I try to communicate my work, or clients and sales reps when i educate them on various products. It made me reevaluate how I approach different personalities at different stages of engagement.
How did I connect a 2 hour class session that I happen to lead with my work life you ask? It’s because I strongly believe that our management style and approach on our day-to-day work environment is closely related with our evaluation and reaction on our outside activities.
It’s no secret that the best business success stories reference normal life situations. Take for example “The Art of War”. Sun Tzu’s work, a war strategy and tactics script, has been praised and saw practical use throughout the Western business society.
And this is why I felt that this 2 hour class and those kids taught me a lesson that I could not experience on another instance.
